GNU CLISP does not get any resources, human or otherwise, from the GNU project. If Sam stops working on CLISP, he's not going to start working on GNU Emacs or gdb instead.
This is true in the same sense that the GIMP is the "GNU Image Manipulation Program". It's just a label, and a license choice, without much real meaning behind it. GCL is also called "GNU Common Lisp".
Hm, indeed, I was expecting to see CLisp follow the GNU coding standards, but it doesn't seem to. I know GIMP does, though, and it consistently uses GNU terminology (free software, not open source, etc). Being GNU does mean something for most GNU packages. In Octave we also follow most of the GNU coding standards, for example, and we benefit from FSF and GNU infrastructure.
Certain things are still hardwired into the Common Lisp reader. For example, because of how colons are treated in symbols, you can't trivially support something like JSON via reader macros. It still works best if the input bears a pretty good resemblance to lisp.
That's not such a big deal, because there are plenty of tools for conventional input parsing in Common Lisp.
It might have been at some point in the past, but it doesn't run on modern systems, does not fully implement Common Lisp, and can't run much of the useful software written in the past 10 or so years.
It's still pretty cool, but not as a learning tool in 2015.
1. It ran for me on Windows 7 not too long back - a year or so ago, IIRC.
2. I did not say that it fully implements Common Lisp. I said is useful as a learning tool - meaning for beginners to Lisp. This scenario is quite possible and can make sense for beginners: install an easy-to-setup-and-start-using tool like Corman Lisp; try learning _some_ of the basics of Lisp for some time using such a tool; if you find that you understand it well enough, and are interested enough to proceed further, THEN find a better/more advanced/professional Lisp and start using it. In other words, gradual learning curve, less investment of time (on installation/setup, etc.) at the start, etc. All good reasons.
3. A beginner is likely not going to want to run "much of the useful software written in the past 10 years" - or however many years. A beginner is going to want to learn the basics of the language - by definition.
And I was talking about beginners in my previous comment - hence used the term "learning tool".
I think anyone who wants to be able to stick with a system as they grow, get supportive help from an active user base, reuse the work of others in the form of useful libraries, and not worry about the viability and future of their development environment should use something like LispWorks, Allegro CL, Clozure CL, or SBCL. LispWorks and Allegro CL are just as easy to install and use on Windows as Corman Lisp.
1. That's exactly one of my points. I don't thing it is necessary for a user to stick with one system as they grow. A user may prefer to start with a very simple tool, use it for a while, then move on to a more powerful but somewhat more complex tool. I guess it is a difference of opinion there.
2. I had also tried out LispWorks and Allegro CL. It was a while ago, so don't remember exact details, but IIRC, either or both of them was not so easy to _use_ as Corman Lisp was - for beginners, mind you. Both were easy to install though.
Note: I am not criticizing those two products on grounds of technical quality. I had read up a lot about Lisp in general, plus specifically about various prominent companies and individuals in the field, and the work that they had done, earlier, before trying out these tools, and so I know that both of those companies are by very accomplished Lisp people. It's just that I didn't find them that easy to use as a beginner to Lisp, compared to Corman Lisp.
I think it's pretty unlikely that this will be made to work in a modern environment in a useful way. I think the primary benefit will be historical interest and possibly the reuse of some of the component parts.
> I'd have posted it myself directly, but xach.com is blacklisted from HN.
Looks like this might be the cause:
<html>
<head>
<title>Hacker News User Affinity Graph</title>
<head>
<body style='font-size: 89%; font-family: sans serif'>
<div style='width: 450px;margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto'>
<h1>Hacker News User Affinity Graph</h1>
<p>What users on <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/">Hacker
News</a> have voting behaviors most similar to yours?
<p>[dead]
<p>You can fake votes on Hacker News if you know your visitor's Hacker
News username. An easy way to get it is to trick them into thinking
they'll get a pretty graphic for providing it. I don't know if this
issue will be fixed, but it's not a good idea to give out your Hacker
News username to random websites until it is.
That probably set off some auto-blacklist based on the frequency of the upvotes you received.
That's sad to hear, but I suppose it's understandable. Hopefully someone can at least get some use out of it, and kudos for encouraging him to release it nonetheless (And to Roger Corman of course for agreeing).
Meta: this company scraped my contact & project info from github and spammed me multiple times to add me to their stable of experts. It felt incredibly slimy.
I'm sure they're very excited about reaching the HN front page.
Hmm. HN likes substantive articles and dislikes sketchy tactics. Those two almost never conflict. When they do, though, we tend to favor the substantive article, which this one clearly is. It's an elementary tutorial, yes, but an unusually well-crafted one, and had it appeared on the author's website (http://apfelmus.nfshost.com/blog.html), there'd be no question.
Perhaps the positive reinforcement of seeing what actually works to get on the HN front page—solid content—will combine with earlier negative reinforcement—prior sketchy tactics have gotten this site penalized—to induce a change in behavior. I know that sounds unicorny, but the last time something like this came up on HN, a different site actually cleaned up its ways. Maybe lightning will strike twice.
I am curious to know why this post was taken down. It was certainly a useful post that organically bubbled to the top as quality content. Can someone please provide feedback.
It wasn't taken down. It was knocked off the front page by flags. My guess is that users feel the site is spammy.
By the way, one of several tactics that you shouldn't use on Hacker News is astroturfing. That (along with vote-rigging) are likely to alienate users and get your accounts, and your site, penalized.
Thanks for bringing this up. My name is Ed Roman, and I'm the CEO of hack.hands(). I'm sorry if our expert onboarding approach was offensive in any way to you. As a young startup, we're still learning as we go and adjusting our approaches.
In case it's valuable to you, I'd like to offer you a free pass to a virtual conference we're holding, at hacksummit.org. This event has some of the best programmers in the world educating you, while raising money for coding charities. You can use the code ZACH to get through registration without any hassle.
I'm happy to chat further over email about any concerns you may have at ed@hackhands.com.
While it was semi-promotional, they offered him it as a sort of compensation. Should a company not be allowed to give out their products for free for compensation?
> While it was semi-promotional, they offered him it as a sort of compensation. Should a company not be allowed to give out their products for free for compensation?
Of course they should be able to do so, but chasing someone down who has (publicly, implicitly) expressed a desire no longer to be contacted, and for whatever reason making the contact in a forum in which it does not belong ("sorry if it was unwelcome" arguably belongs here; "how can we make it up to you?" belongs, if at all, in private communication), it seems to me is an unsavoury tactic.
The event doesn't really need more promotion -- it's already the largest developer conference in history. We're trying to raise money for a dozen non-profits in the coding space, and all money goes to them, not us -- so I'm not going to lose too much sleep if the event gets some more exposure incidentally from my reply to offer someone a free ticket.
If you read my bio, I think you'll see that I understand the demographic quite well -- http://about.me/Edro
Elephant has been unmaintained for many years. I wouldn't recommend it.